


Dreidel Game

by Jizena



Category: South Park
Genre: High School, Holidays, M/M, Romance, Secret Santa, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jizena/pseuds/Jizena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first night of Hanukkah, Stan finds a dreidel in a snowbank. When he and Kyle are shut in during a snowstorm, there's little else to do but play an all or nothing game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreidel Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broflove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broflove/gifts).



> Written for the 2012 [South Park Secret Santa.](http://spsecretsanta.livejournal.com)

           Stan was the one to find the dreidel.

 

            It was on a wet, grey, laudingly lousy and balls-shrivelingly freezing Friday afternoon, just before four o’clock and merely two hours after the conclusion of the AP History exam Kyle had been worrying about for two weeks (and would worry about for two weeks more until results were calculated).  Stan had tried everything to get Kyle to calm down about the test.  It’s a number, Kyle, he’d been saying since Thanksgiving, it’s not the rest of your life.  Yes, Kyle constantly argued, but it’s a number that should be high if there’s going to be any kind of life after high school.

 

            When words did not work, Stan had suggested Mexican food.

 

            A newly-established restaurant located a bearable walk between the boys’ neighborhood and downtown South Park provided them with just such a distraction, and as the two sat down at a bright red table toward the back, Stan was glad to see Kyle at least begin to breathe normally for the first time that week.  They shed layers, slinging coats onto the backs of their chairs, setting bulky gloves onto the table beside them, both ready to forget school and attempt to ignore their hometown’s already full-force end of the year holiday commercialism.

 

            At least the restaurant provided escape from that, as well.  A simple _Feliz Navidad_ sign hung toward the server station far off to Stan’s right, but other than that, the atmosphere was pleasantly toned down, not to mention much less grey than the world outside.

 

            “Dude, thanks for this,” Kyle said to his best friend of well over a decade.  “I’ll pay you back later.”

 

            “Nah,” Stan waved it off, “whatever.  _Feliz Navidad.”_   He ticked his head over toward the sign.

 

            Kyle picked up a triangle of his quesadilla, doused it in salsa, and said before taking a bite, “Thanks, but I’m Jewish.”

 

            Stan feigned surprise, letting his eyes go wide.  “You _are?_   Holy _shit!”_

 

            Mouth occupied with food, Kyle simply kicked Stan under the table, causing the latter to laugh.

 

            This was the fourth meal out that school trimester Stan had paid for without asking for or expecting compensation.  He was counting.  Kyle—as far as Stan knew—was not. 

 

            “Speaking of being Jewish, aren’t you supposed to, like, go home before sunset or something?” Stan asked, slicing open his cheese-sopping enchilada.  “Also, are quesadillas Kosher?”

 

            “Hanukkah isn’t a curfew,” Kyle answered, “and chicken quesadillas are perfectly Kosher, thanks.  At least I think so.  They better be.”  He shrugged, and bit off half of the remainder of his large, still mostly triangular slice of food.

 

            They lingered at the restaurant for nearly half an hour before they had successfully forgotten their day, their week, riddled with finals and holiday stress, and braved the elements for the continuation of the walk home.  That was when the glint in the snowdrift caught Stan’s eye.

 

            Curiosity gripped him, and he nudged Kyle to grab his attention.

 

            “What’s that?”

 

            “What’s what?” Kyle grumbled, wrapping his arms around himself.  “Come on, dude, I’m freezing.”

 

            “No, hold on, I see something.”

 

            Kyle bit down to keep his teeth from chattering while Stan stepped cautiously over to the snowdrift.  A hole had been dug into the side, probably by a squirrel or raccoon or some variety of small creature looking for shelter from the weather, and lying just at the mouth of the opening lay a small but brilliant object.  Stan removed one hand from his coat pocket and reached out for it; once he had it in his thinsulate-gloved palm, he instantly recognized it as a toy he’d come across many times before.

 

            “Check it out, I found a dreidel!”  Stan stood and returned to where Kyle had stayed stationed, and held out his hand to display the find.

 

            “Nice one, too,” Kyle noticed, peering at the small top in the sparse light of the late afternoon.  “Some kid must’ve dropped it, I guess.  The Synagogue’s, like, right up the block.”

 

            “Huh.  I bet some squirrel thought it was a nut or something.”  Stan paused, glanced at the dreidel once, then offered it up, saying, “Want it?”

 

            “What?” Kyle choked on a slight laugh.

 

            “Happy Hanukkah.”

 

            “Gee, thanks.”

 

            Nonetheless, Kyle took the little object from Stan, and buried it deep in his warm coat pocket.  For the duration of the rest of the walk back, Kyle made various quick checks to make sure the dreidel had not moved: he’d shift his fingers around somewhat, or roll his palm, just for the added assurance that the detailed top was still there.

 

            It could barely even be called a gift—it was a found object dropped by a kid who probably would not even miss the thing—but, all the same, it helped Kyle smile a bit.  Which was, more or less, exactly what Stan had been hoping for.  He hated seeing Kyle under stress, and knew that forced family gatherings, or mental strain from tests around the holidays, were never positive agents on Kyle’s consistently over-working brain.

 

            For seven consecutive Hanukkahs, Stan had gone out of his way to observe the holiday in some way or another, and knew well that nothing brought out the fussy Jewish mother in Sheila Broflovski like planning dinner for the first night of that holiday.  Over the past few years, relatives had flown in—the year preceding Kyle’s Bar Mitzvah being a particularly atrocious gathering—or activities had been planned that Kyle just could not escape from, and the only one outside his family he dared to talk to about Hanukkah goings-on was Stan.

 

            Kyle felt for the dreidel in his pocket again when his house came into view.  This year, he hoped, Hanukkah could start off a little easier.  It was supposed to be a holiday about family, about reflecting on blessings, after all.  Not about _how long till Sheila actually explodes this time?_

 

            “Your parents keeping you busy all weekend?” Stan wondered at the front step of the large dark green house.  He shivered under his coat.

 

            “God, I hope not.”  Kyle rolled his eyes skyward.  “Come on in, if you want.  I doubt it’s a war zone yet.”

 

            Perhaps not in the traditional pattern his mother seemed to follow, but Sheila was up in arms nonetheless when the boys walked in.  Stan merely saw her flaming beehive hair dart past once in a blur before hearing her call from the kitchen, “Hello, boys, make yourselves at home.  Stan, you stay as long as you like, dear.  I hope you haven’t eaten.”

 

            “Nope,” Kyle lied, tossing his backpack into a corner where it could sit, forgotten, over the impending school break.

 

            Sheila continued babbling on about needing to run an errand in town and to, for God’s sake, boys, not touch any of the food until she get back, but neither Stan nor Kyle were particularly interested in the words or the stress.  The two fell back onto the living room sofa, Kyle having claimed the little dreidel from his jacket pocket; he now sat passing it back and forth between his hands while he gave Stan control of the TV remote.

 

            Stan settled on a channel playing terrible spaghetti Westerns and stretched his arms out over the back of the sofa.

 

            Four times paying for dinner that trimester, and this was only the second time he’d let himself be obvious with the oldest Goddamn arm stretch trick in the book.  Out of seven consecutively observed Hanukkahs, the past four had been full of a plan Stan had yet to implement.

 

            The plan was exceedingly simple in idea, yet cripplingly difficult in process.  Four years, four words:

 

            _Tell him this time._

 

            Stan had no idea why the thought crossed his mind particularly at Hanukkah… more than Kyle’s birthday (or Stan’s own, for that matter), or, say, the start of summer break.  Hanukkah.  As if it was some kind of all-or-nothing deal breaker.

 

            Sheila was yelling something out into the back yard.  Stan watched Kyle spin the dreidel between his thumb and index finger.  “Westerns, Stan?” Kyle wondered.

 

            “It’s the only non-Christmas special on TV,” Stan shrugged.

 

            “Wait a second,” he heard Kyle’s father, Gerald, call in from the back yard, “is Stan here?”

 

            Stan quickly moved his arms to sit with them folded over his chest.  At least he hadn’t had to grab a pillow, as had been the case when he was twelve and some parent or other had directly addressed one or both of the boys when they were presumably alone.

 

            “Yes, but Gerald, come on,” Sheila shriek-urged to her husband, “we need to pick up Ike, and I need more eggs or this is never going to—“

 

            “Honey, we have three dozen eggs, it’ll be fine.  Get Stan out here, I wanna show this baby off!”

 

            “Dude, what the fuck is your dad talking about?” Stan wondered, staring at Kyle, who only groaned once in response.

 

            “Stan!” Kyle’s father called.  God, both of the Broflovski parents could be loud, Stan thought—though he knew never to voice that opinion.

 

            “Ugh, Dad!” Kyle shouted back, leaning his head on the wall behind the sofa.  “Everyone knows about your fucking generator!”

 

            “Yes, but has everyone _seen_ it?”

 

            Kyle shifted his position again, so that he could tilt his head up and look directly at Stan in order to plead in a harsh whisper, _“Save me.  They’re insane.”_

 

            “You’re not coming home with me, my parents are worse,” Stan reminded him.

 

            “I’m moving to Alaska.  Come on.  Dad won’t shut up till you see this thing.”

 

            Stan followed suit when Kyle stood, and stepped along beside him as he lead the way to the back door, joined to the kitchen.  Sheila stood, unimpressed and bundled in a bear’s worth of winter coats, tapping her foot in the wet December snow as she attempted to get her husband moving with little more than a scowl.  “He’s so proud of this, Stanley, I’m sorry,” she made the point to apologize.

 

            Glancing out into the yard, Stan caught sight of Kyle’s father, crowned with a yarmulke as usual, checking over a large wooden crate with a horizontal hinge.  The hinged door was propped up with a long stick, revealing underneath the crate a new, top-of-the-line generator.  Out from the bottom of the crate snaked an orange extension cord, which ran along the snowy ground to an outlet at the back of the house, directly below the kitchen window.

 

            “Ta-da!” Gerald Broflovski announced, removing the stick in order to hold up the hinged door himself and gesture in at the contraption.

 

            “Um,” Stan offered.  “Neat.”

 

            “All right, Gerald, he’s seen it,” Sheila pressed, “now, come on, we need to run errands before the weather starts, and I am not making Ike walk home!”

 

            “What weather?” Stan had to ask.

 

            Which only got Gerald going.  “Haven’t you been watching the news?” he gloated, still showing off the generator as if he were Vana White.  “Avalanche warning this weekend, boys!”

 

            “Yeah, further into the Rockies,” Stan recalled the latest reports.

 

            “Yes, but they’re predicting power shortages, the whole shebang.  Wet snow and then the packed stuff later tonight.  And while the rest of the town’s out of juice, the Broflovskis will be nice and comfortable.”

 

            “Miracle of light, Gerald, now _come on,”_ Sheila insisted. 

 

            “Festival of lights, miracle of oil,” Kyle muttered so his parents couldn’t hear.  “It’ll be a real miracle if I can fuckin’ survive this.”  Stan hid a laugh.

 

            Gerald, still boasting, listened to neither of them.  “Go back inside, I want to show off the gas stove!”

 

            Stan did not point out that Gerald was not the only one in town to have installed a generator or gas stove, nor did he discuss the fact that South Park had weathered much, much worse than a _possible avalanche._   If the town could get through an erupted volcano, a pinkeye epidemic, and direct attacks from various outside sources (Hollywood chiefly among them), they could damn well handle a little power blip, just like they did every winter.

 

            Luckily for the boys, Sheila won the ranting war, and Kyle’s parents had left for town minutes later.  The house itself groaned against a gust of wind with relief.  Taking advantage of being in the kitchen, Kyle made for the fridge and poked his head in.  “You want something to drink, dude?” he offered.

 

            From the bottom shelf, he extracted a fresh gallon of apple cider.  A quick glance over the ingredients reminded him that such cider of course had no alcoholic content; Kyle shrugged, and walked to a cupboard over the toaster for a glass.  “Stan?” he offered again.

 

            “Sure, yeah.”  Upon pouring out two glasses full, Kyle continued scouring the cupboards, prompting Stan to ask, “Dude, what are you doing?”

 

            “Mom hides stuff she bakes this time of year, I wanna find the rugelach.”  When one cupboard provided him with nothing, he moved to another.  “I don’t think she’s figured out yet that I’m actually fucking taller than she is, and I can find shit.”

 

            While Stan’s genes had allowed him to reach a comfortable, if not quite yet ideal, five-ten by the start of sophomore year, Kyle, whose growth spurts had hit first, lagged behind in height by three inches.  Though not the shortest, by far, on the school’s cross-country team, which both friends had joined the previous year as freshmen (mostly due to their parents demanding they find something to do in the spring), Kyle was the shortest among their group of friends.  But still plenty tall enough to scour for hidden baked goods in family cupboards.

 

            “Watch,” Stan snickered, “she hid them in the generator crate.”

 

            “Pff.  You laugh.  She might’ve.”  A quick glance in a ceramic white Fishs Eddy cookie jar provided little else in the way of dessert.  “I don’t believe it.  All we have are leftover fortune cookies from the past few times we’ve gotten takeout.  That or all this stupid chocolate gelt.”  At least five bags of chocolate, gold foil-wrapped coins were stacked beside the cookie jar, with a huge paper note in Sheila’s writing resting over them: _SAVE._   “Fortune cookie?”

 

            “Better than nothing,” Stan shrugged.  Kyle tossed him a plastic-wrapped P. F. Chang’s fortune cookie, and crossed to return the cider to the fridge.  “So much for not eating anything yet,” Stan added, grinning.

 

            Kyle grabbed the glasses of cider, handed one to Stan, and walked to the living room.  “I’m being a good host,” he excused himself.

 

            With no complaints to the statement on Stan’s part, he followed, wondering if Kyle had any idea that his slow gait almost gave the illusion that he swayed when he walked.  Attempting to clear his mind, Stan moved his eyes to the silver menorah, empty but for the unlit Shamesh candle in the center, which sat on a table set up under the Broflovskis’ front window.

 

            _It’s Hanukkah,_ the thought burned at Stan’s brain, regardless.  _Tell him this time._

 

            Right, Stan scolded himself.  How?

 

            The two sat on the floor at the base of the sofa; when Kyle leaned back, his thick, tameless red curls, shining a bit from moisture in the outside air that had yet to evaporate from his follicles, slid against the lower cushions and nearly brushed Stan’s ear.  Six years of practice allowed Stan to simply stare forward at the television.

 

            Stan was ten when he realized he was in love with Kyle, eleven when he convinced himself that he could ignore it or that he was wrong, and twelve—when Kyle turned down an invitation from Stan in order to attempt a new date with his running crush, Nicole—when Stan realized that loving Kyle was the last thing he could ever give up on.

 

            He’d managed to keep the fact to himself, enjoy Kyle’s company in the meantime, buy Kyle dinner and stupidly refer to them as dates in his head, and pussy out on Hanukkah.  Stan truly had no idea why another holiday wouldn’t suffice— _Happy New Year, I’m in love with you; Happy Thanksgiving, let me talk to you about my wishbone—_ but he held onto Hanukkah as his chance.

 

            Maybe this year.

 

            He had eight days.

 

            Kyle had changed the channel to a weather report when he broke open the plastic wrap around his fortune cookie.  “You eat yours yet?” he wondered.

 

            “What?”  Stan blinked at the TV, and covered his confusion by taking a sip of cider.

 

            “Your fortune cookie.  Anything interesting in yours?”

 

            Stan set down his drink and broke open the packaging on his own small snack.  The rip of the plastic was echoed by a slapping of wet snow against the window.  The ‘weather’ Sheila had been hoping to avoid was getting a good running start.  The last light of the grey day had now faded, Stan noticed, and batches of slush were raining down, threatening already to freeze.

 

            Stan shoved the wrapping into the pocket of his large green, school emblem-emblazoned sweatshirt and snapped the fortune cookie in half, taking a glance first at the slip contained inside.  “Mine says, _Learn Chinese: Snow (Xué).”_   Kyle rolled his eyes.  Stan laughed and turned the slip of paper over.  “When you are presented with nothing,” he read off, “therein will you find everything.”

 

            “Let me see that.”  Kyle held his hand out.  Stan presented him with the fortune, and Kyle scrutinized the little sheet for a second, commenting, “These things never make any sense.”

 

            “At least these’re P. F. Chang’s.  They’re better than the ones at City Wok,” Stan pointed out.  “I think someone just mashes a gavel into a typewriter for those.”

 

            “That or it’s just him running ads for people to come back,” Kyle agreed, handing the fortune over again.

 

            “Yeah, you’re right.  What’s yours say?” Stan wondered.

 

            Kyle broke his cookie and studied his fortune, reading, “Luck shall find you lucky.  Aaaaaand, bullshit.”

 

            “I like how these make sense, just really, really vaguely.”

 

            “All fortune telling is super fucking vague,” Kyle pointed out.  “That’s why it’s a scam that works.”

 

            “Dude, you think everything is a scam.”

 

            “Because it usually is.”

 

            “…Yeah, true, but still, sometimes they’re fun,” Stan pointed out.  “Especially ones that teach you Chinese in the process.  What’s your word?”

 

            Kyle turned his paper over.  “The _Learn Chinese_ on mine is _Miracle (Chi Ji).”_

 

            “Sweet, you got a Hanukkah one.”

 

            “Yeah, Stan, because Hanukkah’s huge over in China,” Kyle mocked, trying not to laugh.  “I hear the Buddhists love it.”

 

            “All mine did was predict the weather,” Stan shrugged.  As he spoke, the wind picked up, and the snowflakes began gathering into small heaps.  “And it _might_ be popular in China, who knows?  I mean, I’m a something-in-the-cloudy-realm-of-Christian who thinks Hanukkah’s pretty kick-ass.”

 

            “What, just because I celebrate it and you know what it means?”

 

            Stan’s grin was too broad and pleased, at that point, for him to even think of continuing the conversation in a joking way.  “Yeah,” he said, “pretty much.”

 

            “Fair enough.”

 

            Kyle once again relinquished the remote to Stan, who, bored of the predictable television lineup, lay down onto his stomach on the floor and jadedly flipped through channels.  Kyle lay down in the same fashion beside him, and made the odd comment here and there about the nature of the images that flashed on the screen.  The History Channel was airing some kind of terrible holiday-altered TV movie version of _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies—_ that got the biggest groan out of Kyle, who would, every so often, get calls from the History Channel asking for professional opinions on holiday lore (he had said _one thing_ one Thanksgiving… _one tiny stupid thing…)._   Stan changed the channel again quickly, and eventually settled back on watching the weather.

 

            They had watched a good forty-five minutes of weather documentation before realizing that they were still bored.  Stan rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, commenting, “Dude, can you believe it’s vacation?”

 

            “I’m so fucking glad it is,” Kyle agreed.  He flipped onto his back as well, but, since neither cared a great deal about personal space, lay his head on Stan’s stomach, so that their bodies formed a crooked _T._   “I hate that some finals have to happen right before the holidays.”

 

            “That’s because you’re insane and take AP,” Stan reminded him.

 

            “Insanity should be rewarded,” Kyle declared.

 

            “It is.  Just not in high school.”

 

            “Ugh, no kidding.”

 

            Commercials began playing loud, canned Christmas music while announcers shouted at viewers about deals.  “Speaking of insane,” said Stan, “is it too much to ask for a non-shouting, non-commercial holiday?”

 

            “It is in America.”

 

            “I mean, everyone _says_ ‘spend this time with loved ones,’ but people still get shot in mall parking lots over things that’ll be outdated in a year anyway.”

 

            “How will you spend _your_ holidays?” the woman on the advertisement said, too cheerily.

 

            Kyle muted the TV, and settled in, letting Stan’s oversized sweatshirt do its job as a pillow.  “Mexican food, Chinese fortunes and Hanukkah gelt,” he answered the woman.

 

            “Merry melting pot,” Stan added.

 

            “No shit,” Kyle agreed.  “It kinda bugs me, too, though.  There’s, like, no tradition anymore.”

 

            “You don’t get to say that,” Stan pointed out.  “You’ve at least _got_ Hanukkah.  My dad chooses something different for our family to try out every five fucking months, it’s stupid.”

 

            Kyle shrugged, his shoulder sticking up into Stan’s ribs as he did.  “This holiday feels more and more like an extended Thanksgiving to me every year,” he lamented.  “It’s Mom making a bunch of food, talking about family and miracles, and spending too much money on stuff.”

 

            In a practiced attempt to derail Kyle’s inevitable tangent—or, at least, to set it on a different track—Stan asked, “Okay, well, what would you do?”

 

            “What?”

 

            “If you could choose exactly how to spend Hanukkah,” Stan clarified, his fingers absently winding their way up into Kyle’s hair, as if he could massage the right thoughts out, “how would you do it?”

 

            Shifting his head to the side, Stan watched Kyle twirl the dreidel they’d found between his right thumb and index finger, while his left hand remained lazily pocketed.  The little illuminated letters on all four sides glinted in the low light until they were only a brown-gold blur.  “If I could celebrate it any way,” Kyle wondered, “ever?”

 

            “Yeah.”  Stan paused.  “Ever thought about it?”

 

            “I guess,” Kyle said, nearly muttering now.  Taking in a deep breath, he continued, “For once in my life it’d be nice to just have it be this quiet thing.  You know?  Holidays are all about this crazy rushing around shit.  Hanukkah and Christmas, I mean, take away whatever the origins of ‘em are, isn’t it just supposed to be about, like… spending time with people you really want to spend time with?  I’d do that.  You’re supposed to count your blessings on Hanukkah.  The past two fucking years I’ve been counting down the blessing that I’m one day closer to graduating.  How stupid is that?  I should want to be with people, not want to get away from them.”

 

            “Dude, I hear you,” Stan commented.  “That’s how I’d spend Hanukkah, too.  Christmas.  Whatever.”  He continued the massage on Kyle’s scalp, forgetting that he was even moving his fingers so.

 

            Kyle laughed.  “Here’s hoping for a miracle, then,” he said, giving the dreidel one final twirl.

 

            A branch hit the window.

 

            The boys sat up with a simultaneous start.  Kyle was faster onto his feet, and rushed to the window to assess any possible damage.  Carefully, he leaned over the small menorah table and peered past the rapidly intensifying downfall of what the Channel 4 meteorologist had referred to as simply a ‘wintry mix.’

 

            Suddenly, an avalanche did not seem as unlikely as it had half an hour before.

 

            “Shit,” Stan realized, getting himself up to standing as well, “it’s getting really windy out there.”

 

            “Yeah.”  Kyle froze in place.  Stan watched Kyle’s expression change in the upper glass windowpane. “Dude, where are my parents?”

 

            “Jesus, if I had to drive in this, even I’d go really slow,” Stan offered.

 

            “Which, for you, is what, fifty miles an hour?” Kyle managed to taunt when he turned around.  Stan waggled one hand in the air in front of him back and forth to indicate, ‘something like that,’ then joined Kyle at the window.  The two barely shared a glance before both staring out at the road again.  When Kyle leaned in against the menorah table, Stan followed suit, making sure to place the box of candles that lay beside the candelabra a couple of inches away from where his hands settled down.

 

            The wind was indeed terrible, but the concern that ripped through Stan and Kyle both was the snow.  Since their arrival at the Broflovski house, the snow had gone from a gentle, noiseless dusting to a fast, wind-piercing downfall; the flakes were large and compact, sticking instantly to the ground when they fell to create a veritable wall not only along the sidewalks, but into the streets as well.

 

            “Holy shit,” Kyle breathed out, “there’s, like, half a foot in the road already.  _Can_ they drive?”

 

            “I dunno, dude.  And didn’t the weather say something about—“

 

            Hail.  Stan heard it before he could say it.  The drumming of the ice particles added into the snowfall against the roof and sides of the house started off softly, but here and there a louder _whack_ could be heard.  This sort of hail was inconvenient, at worst… one could drive in the weather, certainly, but would be a fool to do so.  Stan’s thoughts turned to his own stubborn father, hoping he might do the smart thing for once and not put himself at risk just to prove that the weather was nothing abominable to traverse.

 

            Kyle was just beginning to mutter something else when the lights flickered.  A loud _pop_ was then heard, after which the house went dark and Kyle yelped out, “Oh, fuck!”

 

            Stan felt a sudden yank on his arm, and looked down to verify that Kyle had not only grabbed but was now securing a vice grip on Stan’s wrist.  “Matches,” Kyle demanded hurriedly.

 

            “Yeah,” Stan responded, dumbfounded for a second.

 

            “What?”

 

            “What?”

 

            “Where are the matches for the candles?!” Kyle demanded more strongly, sinking his fingers further into Stan’s wrist.  “We need fucking light or—”

 

            “Oh!  Yeah, um—“

 

            Another pop, and then a buzzing hum, and the lights flickered back on.  Kyle sighed.  “Thank God for that fucking generator,” he remarked.  “Guess it really is a miracle of light.”

 

            Stan cleared his throat, and wished he hadn’t when it prompted Kyle to release his grip.  “Sorry, dude,” Kyle mentioned.

 

            “No, you’re fine,” Stan dismissed.  To derail his own thoughts, he glanced outside yet again.  “Dude, if it flickered, though, that means the rest of town’s gotta be without power.”

 

            Kyle’s breath stalled, and he nervously fiddled with the dreidel Stan had given him until he finally set it down.  Needing something to do with his hands, he shook them out, then grabbed at his hair and asked again, “Where the hell are my parents?”

 

            “I’m sure they’re all right, Kyle, they aren’t bad drivers.  My family’s out, too.”

 

            The phone rang, just as Kyle’s nerves were at their peak.  He darted for the corded wall phone hanging on the wall that separated the living room from the dining room, and nearly collided with the wall when he picked up after only the second ring.  “Hello?” he let out, too loudly, into the receiver.

 

            “Kyle!” his mother’s voice sounded over the other line.

 

            Relief washed over him, and Kyle pressed his back to the wall, then slid to the floor before he found his voice again.  Stan rounded the corner from the living room, and Kyle gave him as much of a smile has he could manage at the moment, to let him know the call was a positive one.

 

            “I’m sorry, _bubbe,_ I wanted to get a hold of you sooner,” Sheila went on, “but that snow just came so quickly.  Are you boys all right?”  She paused, then said more flatly and distantly, “I’ll ask him, Gerald, hold on.”

 

            “Yeah, we’re fine,” Kyle answered.  “Is Dad asking about the generator?  It’s working.”

 

            “Well, good, I’m glad to hear it.”

 

            Stan ducked back into the kitchen while Kyle remained on the phone, listening to his mother’s explanation of her interrupted evening.  Upon picking Ike up from a friend’s house, the worst of the snow had started, and road crews began setting up to block off unsafe routes.  The Community Center, Sheila explained, had been opened up as a refuge point for anyone who had been caught downtown in the blizzard.

 

            Among others at the community center were Stan’s parents as well, who had taken Stan’s sister, Shelley, out to dinner on her first night home from college for the winter break; the three of them sent along a hello to Stan, which Kyle promised to pass on.

 

            “I’m glad you’re not there alone, sweetheart,” Sheila said to wrap up her call.  “You and Stan be safe, now, you hear me?”

 

            “Sure thing,” Kyle answered blankly.  “Glad you guys’re all right.  Hi to Ike, okay?  Oh, um… Happy Hanukkah.”

 

            Sheila sounded both proud and forlorn when she replied, “Happy Hanukkah.  Light the candles tonight, anyway, Kyle, would you?”

 

            “I will.”

 

            “Promise.”

 

            “Yeah, Mom, I will; I will.”

 

            Stan walked back through the dining room with three bowls stacked in his hands, and a bag of chocolate Hanukkah gelt stuffed into the topmost one.  He grinned at Kyle and ticked his head toward the living room; Kyle stood, when his conversation was over, carefully hung up the receiver, and returned to the living room to find Stan setting up the three bowls on the floor between the television and sofa.

 

            “What’re you doing?” Kyle wondered.

 

            “In case we get bored,” Stan said, with the bright tones of a proud child, “we should play the dreidel game.  Your dad have any rum or whiskey?  We could play for shots.”

 

            “And die,” Kyle scorned jokingly.  “Dad has the lamest stash, believe me.  We’d be better off drinking cooking sherry.”

 

            Stan wrinkled up his nose.  “I pass.”

 

            “Same.  But, dude, the TV’s still working and stuff,” Kyle pointed out.  “Even if cable cuts out, we’ve got games and movies and shit.”

 

            Stan shrugged, hoping that he looked enough like he was agreeing.  Something about the simplicity of a simple dreidel game appealed to him a bit more.  Besides, nothing could distract Kyle’s nerves like a mindless game with easy rules.  When board games stopped being interesting to the boys in middle school, they had begun coming up with ways to make the games more interesting: going to jail in Monopoly could mean getting locked up in a closet for two hours, losing at checkers could result in a weekend of doing the other’s chores.

 

            Sometimes the games could get cutthroat.  More often than not, Stan would let Kyle win… because more often than not, he’d suggested the game in order to ease Kyle’s stress over something that really did not deserve that amount of worry in the first place.  Or simply to give Kyle peace of mind.

 

            “Yeah, I mean, whatever,” Stan passed off.  “Whatever you wanna do, dude.”

 

            Kyle took a look around the room, fully surveying the possible layouts for their evening.  “Well…” he decided, “I guess I’m all for just a little game or something.  But, dude, we should probably build a fire before it gets really late.  The generator’s good for light, but not heat.”

 

            “Can’t we just huddle next to the gas stove?” Stan groaned.  He’d never been a fan of firewood: lugging it, dealing with it, and _especially_ cutting it.  An old boyfriend of his mother’s, during one of his parents’ few separations, had forced then eight-year-old Stan to do practically nothing _but_ chop firewood, and Stan still detested the chore.

 

            “I’m not sure that’d be too smart in the long run,” Kyle said flatly.  “Come on, dude, if we build a fire now, we’ll be glad later.”

 

            Not one to enjoy starting unnecessary arguments, particularly with his best friend, Stan agreed.  Kyle hauled Stan up to his feet, looked over the rarely used though occasionally necessary brick fireplace at the far end of the room, and the two resigned themselves to the chore.

 

            The next hour was spent carting firewood up from the basement, unloading it next to the fireplace, and Kyle pretending to have the faintest idea about properly stacking kindling and getting a fire going without burning himself.  He managed, after three tries with what he dismissed as ‘bad matches,’ to stuff a layer of crumpled newspaper under the iron rack of tiny logs and ignite a flame.  Charging Stan with feeding the fire for the next few minutes, Kyle’s next action was to honor his mother’s request for lighting the menorah.

 

            Once at the table, Kyle was distracted by the pelting down of snow out the window.  There were several unchanging factors in Kyle’s life that he had mixed feelings about.  Snow was one of them.  It was unavoidable, predictable, yet inconsistent.  He could love the hell out of a snow day, or curse every deity in the Greek pantheon when he was sick of putting up with too much of it.  For the time being, Kyle decided, he’d deal with the wet, freezing inconvenience, and be glad that, at least, he was not stuck outside in it, and that—most of all—he was not alone.

 

            He glanced down at the silver menorah on the table, and the thin blue Shamesh candle his parents had left in the center.  Every single year, as far back as he could remember, he’d lit the first night’s candle and fumbled over copying his father’s intonations of the Hebrew prayer.  When Kyle was eight, he’d taken Hanukkah more seriously than anything, teaching his then two-year-old brother the games and customs he’d learned; when Kyle was twelve, and Stan had started taking on a new fascination with the holiday, he’d found a reinvigoration of his interest in the candle lighting tradition.

 

            That afternoon, however, was coming back to Kyle in droves of guilt.  “I shouldn’t have complained,” Kyle muttered, thinking aloud.

 

            “What?”  Stan glanced up from the fire, which he was less than methodically poking with an iron rod.

 

            Lying beside the menorah, where he’d set it down before the phone rang, was the dreidel Stan had found lying outside.  In the Broflovski household, gifts were exchanged among family after lighting the first night’s candle.  Kyle picked up the dreidel, and studied the illuminated letters; if he received only one gift that entire year, let alone during the holiday itself, he was glad it was something well intentioned from Stan, even if it was some abandoned toy he’d found lying in a snowbank.

 

            Closer examination of the top, however, fired off Kyle’s brain: if a squirrel had stolen it and tried to hoard it, why were there no tooth or claw marks?  If it was in a dirty snowbank on a shitty, hazy, wet day, why were there no signs of damage on its surface?

 

            “I shouldn’t have complained,” Kyle sighed, closing his fingers around the dreidel.  “I’ve been super stressed over finals and shit lately, and the holiday just kinda snuck in there.  I hate when Hanukkah comes late in the year, it’s stressful.  I dunno.  You were right, Stan, we do have more tradition behind this than I was even thinking.  I’ve never lit the candles alone.”

 

            Stan prodded the fire once more, then stood, set the iron tong in its resting place next to the flue, and made his way over to where Kyle still stood staring at the silver menorah.  Kyle’s hand was still clenched firmly around the dreidel, his eyes had not moved from the Shamesh candle.

 

            The crackling of the fire seemed to drown out the wind groaning through the house’s foundation as Stan picked up the packet of candles, and held them up to distract Kyle’s attention.  “Well, you’re not really alone,” he pointed out, “if I count.”

 

            Kyle nearly laughed.  “You count.  Sorry,” he added, taking one white candle from the packet.  He placed the candle in the farthest right holder on the menorah, struck what he swore in his mind would be the last match that evening, and lit the Shamesh candle.

 

            He muttered the prayer under his breath, knowing he was pronouncing at least five words wrong (despite knowing that Stan would not care, one way or the other, about his accuracy), and used the Shamesh, as he had several times before, to light the first night’s candle.

 

            The two flames flickered in the window, then, reflecting against the lower glass pane a warm, soothing alternative to the wild mix of ice and snow beating the outer wall of the house and covering the ground outside.  Kyle let himself smile, loosened his grip on the dreidel, and nudged Stan’s arm with his elbow.  “Thanks,” he said, in an unreadable yet light tone.

 

            “For what?”

 

            “Being part of this year’s tradition.”  Kyle shrugged, then laughed at himself.  He set the dreidel he’d been gripping back down, then admitted, “That sounded kinda dumb, sorry.  You hungry?  I think we’ve got pizza or something.  I don’t wanna make anything fancy.”

 

            Stan smiled a response, and let Kyle swerve on his own back through the dining room and into the kitchen.  Under the sounds of Kyle wrestling with various bags of frozen vegetables in order to unearth a boxed oven-ready pizza, Stan knealt at the menorah table, and folded his arms over the surface.  He looked from the flickering lights down to the little dreidel, racking his brain to remember which of the four letters was currently facing up.

 

            _Tell him,_ he urged himself.

 

            Urged and urged and urged; this was the year, this had to be the year he’d at least say _some_ thing.  Panic clenched his insides, and he battled the idea.  It could go wrong, after all.  The two had no way of knowing how long they’d be snowed in—or, rather, how long the rest of their families would be snowed out.  All weekend?  Rejection was always an option, and now was not the right time for Stan to attempt to deal with that outcome.  After all, he had no way of going about saying it.

 

            Put off by his lack of faith in his own long running _tell Kyle on Hanukkah_ plan, Stan sighed and picked up the dreidel.  Giving it a spin, he whispered, “Some kind of miracle might be nice.”  _Like, for me to be_ miraculously _less stupid about this,_ he added in his head.

 

            When the dreidel fell, it landed on _nun._   Either that or _gimmel._   Stan could not tell the difference.

 

– – –

 

            A campsite of sorts had been set up by the fireplace during the later evening: a true masterpiece made up of sofa cushions, pillows from the sofa and from Kyle’s bed, and collected comforters from around the house’s various linen locations.  Very little pizza grease had gone anywhere but the floor, and both the fire and menorah had been tended to prior to Stan and Kyle falling dead asleep in their cushion pile to nothing but the sound of the wind and snow.

 

            The sun rose in the vaguest sense of the word, still mostly covered by grey clouds, which at least had abetted in their downpour.  The ground was worse for the wear than anything, with piles and piles of snow heaping over the street, crystallized into place and already a shoveler’s nightmare, with more predicted to be on the way.

 

            Kyle woke first.

 

            Kyle always woke first.  Every sleepover, every camping trip.  He was used to being almost entirely alert by the time Stan could be bothered with so much as opening one eye, so he fought off the comforter he’d curled up in the night before, only to find himself freezing.  He searched through the pillows and around the floor for the sweatshirt he’d taken off when the fire had proven to be too hot, but could only find Stan’s, with its garish school logo.

 

            Too frozen to care, he pulled the sweatshirt on and made his way to the kitchen.  He flicked up the light switch, knowing the sun sure as hell wasn’t going to be providing much extra light that morning.  Nothing happened.  Kyle’s heart stalled, and he flicked the switch down and up ten times before bolting to the kitchen window.

 

            And yelped when he saw the tree.

 

            He slapped both hands over his mouth to shut himself up, but continued staring at the damage in the yard.  It was nothing excruciating on the lawn’s part, and nothing had happened to the house, but a small tree from his backyard had given way in the wind overnight, and fallen diagonally across the crate covering the generator.  The wood at the top had splintered to both sides, and the machine itself had been dented.

 

            So much for that.

 

            The cry of alarm was enough to wake Stan, who similarly groped through the cushions for a sweatshirt.  Finding none, he chose to put up with the cold air, folded his arms tightly across his chest, and arrived in the kitchen to find Kyle in a standing stupor, staring out the window.  Stan’s green sweatshirt hung off of Kyle’s slightly narrower shoulders, and the sleeves were rumpled up over Kyle’s wrists, where he tensely gripped the kitchen counter.  Despite the clearly panic-inducing situation, Stan was at least fine letting himself smile, glad to know where his sweatshirt had gone off to.

 

            “What’s up?” he wondered.

 

            Kyle gaped out the window, then shook his head furiously, grabbed at his cushion-tossed curls, and turned to face Stan, remarking loudly, “Fucking generator’s busted.”

 

            “What?”  Stan could only process so much when half-asleep.

 

            So, too, could Kyle, but the tree was scraping at his mind’s durability.  “A tree fell on the generator, dude, we’re fucked for power,” he announced.

 

            “Dude, that blows,” Stan commented, his eyes going wide.  From where he stood, he could already see most of the problem.  His heart skipped, and his first thought was, _I wish for a miracle and get power failure.  Awesome._   He shook the thought away, and asked, “What’re we gonna do?  Wanna go try to fix it?”

 

            “It snowed, like, _four feet,”_ Kyle observed, gesturing with one hand toward the window.  “Plus, it dented the generator and neither of us has any way to fix it, so I’m gonna vote just building more fires and… ugh, I don’t know, _something_ over going outside and getting hypothermia.”

 

            “All right, you’re right,” Stan said calmly.  If he could keep himself calm, he hoped Kyle would follow suit.  “Let’s just… I dunno, have some breakfast, figure out what to do, probably find some flashlights and shit since it’ll probably get dark early again.”

 

            Kyle let out a frustrated but accepting groan, and walked to the stove to turn on one of the burners.  To his relief, the gas had not cut out with the power, and the teapot that his mother always kept full on the back left burner was lit from underneath with a bright blue flame.  “Want some hot chocolate?” he asked Stan, moving to the pantry to pull out a box of cocoa mix.  Stan agreed, and the two  sat down to an inspired breakfast of hot chocolate and cold cereal before grudgingly accepting that the day had to start eventually.

 

            Though the gas was on, the hot water was not, and after muttering curses for a solid minute about not being able to take showers, Kyle sprayed both himself and Stan down with aerosol deodorant, and made the first chore of the day be collecting pajamas and changes of clothes from his room.  Stan frequented the house so often that he was able to find one pair of his own jeans tucked in among Kyle’s, but he was given a loan of two t-shirts, a thick pair of socks, pajama pants and a set of boxers.

 

            “They’re new,” Kyle insisted when he shoved the boxers into Stan’s arms, already piled with other clothes.  As if that would make a difference in Stan’s acceptance of them.

 

            “Thanks.”

 

            “You want your sweatshirt back?” Kyle wondered.

 

            “Nah,” Stan shrugged, “you keep wearing it.  I can just borrow one of yours, or whatever.”

 

            Kyle was too warm to argue or care enough to switch off sweatshirts simply based on ownership, so he offered up a quick selection—a black, 1998 D.V.D.A. tour sweatshirt he’d gotten for a steal on eBay that zipped in the front—to Stan, who gratefully set down his pile, pulled the garment on, then allowed Kyle to re-load him up with the rest in order for the two to return downstairs.

 

            Flashlights were then collected from the basement and utility closets and positioned, as if marking out a labyrinth, at every major checkpoint of the house: corners of the living room, every possible table, two on kitchen counters, three on the way to the bathroom.  In the bathroom, Kyle hunted down a bottle of hand lotion to keep beside the fire, to fight off the embarrassing rapidity with which his skin often cracked if he sat near a fire too long.  When the tasks were successfully completed and the lunch of choice was deemed to be the re-heated pizza left over from dinner, a new challenge presented itself:

 

            “What the fuck’re we gonna do with the rest of the day?”

 

            Kyle was the one to pose the question.  Stan glanced once at the menorah, looking to it in hopes that it could somehow provide inspiration.  The answer wasn’t hard.

 

            The three bowls that Stan had procured from the kitchen the night before still lay, waiting, on the living room floor.  “Well,” Stan suggested, “since everything else is kinda out, we’ve at least got this.”  He crossed to the menorah table to gather up the little dreidel, sat down with the top and his plate of pizza slices, and said, “Let’s start a game.”

 

            Hesitant, Kyle joined Stan on the floor near the bowls, into each of which Stan counted out eight pieces of the chocolate gelt.  “We have, like, _Clue_ and shit,” Kyle notified him.

 

            “Yeah, but let’s start with this,” Stan pleaded.

 

            He really was pleading, Kyle thought, though he could not fathom why.  He set his own pizza to the side, and caught a slight glimpse of the fortune cookie slips the two had left lying on the floor the night prior.  _Luck shall find you lucky._

 

            Not at dreidel.  Every single year since Ike was five, Kyle had not spun the win-all _gimmel_ once.  Not once.  But, just as gamblers tended to find the right dice, perhaps, Kyle thought, he’d just been playing with the wrong top.

 

            He was still marveling over the one Stan had found, at its newly crafted look, at the illumination of the letters and the veneer of the wood.  One would think Stan had found a precious stone lying in the snowbank, rather than a simple little holiday toy, but Kyle had a feeling he’d end up treasuring the dreidel more than he would some shiny rock.

 

            “Okay,” Kyle agreed, watching Stan pass the dreidel back and forth between his hands, “but can we make it more interesting than winning or losing chocolate?”

 

            “You bet,” Stan grinned.  “What’re the stakes?”

 

            Kyle sank into thought for a moment.  He’d played variants of the games before, with his brother and cousins, and distant acquaintances from Jew Scouts.  Most revolved around truth-or-dare scenarios, with a handful among them being little more than re-worked drinking games.  With a practically bone dry house and a mind full of more than simple holiday stress, Kyle settled on one of the old standby variants.

 

            “So, this might be stupid,” he addressed, “since you and I know, like, virtually everything about each other.”  It was true.  Having held up a friendship for at least ninety percent of their lives, Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski could complete one another’s thoughts before the other could even begin speaking, at times.  But, even when it seemed that there was little left to be discovered, the two would wind up in a situation that gave them more to talk about, and continue on as they had for years.  “But here’s the deal.

 

            “All right, so you’ve got four letters.”  He pointed to each as he spoke: _“Hey,_ you take half what’s in the center bowl, _shin,_ you put one in the center from your own.  _Nun,_ nothing happens.”

 

            Stan passed one of the bowls closer to Kyle and slid another closer to himself.  “The last one’s _gimmel,_ right?” he guessed.  “You get everything.”

 

            “Right.  So the stakes are, the first one to spin _gimmel,”_ and Kyle was ready to bite off his own tongue for saying this, “has to say one thing the other one of us doesn’t know.”

 

            Stan chomped down on a slice of pizza.  As he chewed, he wondered, “That’s it?  You said yourself, we know, like, everything…”

 

            Kyle shrugged.  “It’s a start, or a challenge, or… I don’t know.  Let’s just see if one of us ends up having something really out there to fess up on.”

 

            With another bite of pizza, Stan agreed, “Sure.  Yeah, it’s a start.”

 

            He glanced down at the dreidel, and felt the sudden twinge that he was holding onto fate itself.  The secret he had to tell was something he was sure he should have told Stan months ago, but the opportunity had never presented itself.  It seemed lame to say it under such circumstances, but history had shown that Kyle would most likely not have to say a thing, anyway.  He could save it for another time, or when not tied to a silly little game.

 

            Kyle’s first spin was _hey;_ Stan’s was _shin._   They continued on for quite some time, spinning only three of the four letters.  Not once did either of the two come up with _gimmel._

At first, it was hilarious.  The two joked back and forth at the ridiculous odds of never once spinning a one-in-four chance, and ended up emptying most of the bag of chocolate coins into the center bowl in order to keep the game going.  The novelty wore off after a fast hour and a half, when Stan had spun _hey_ six times in a row.

 

              “Um… wow,” Kyle remarked, unwrapping a piece of gelt from his bowl.  “Dude, this is lame, sorry.  If neither of us spins _gimmel,_ the game’s moot.”

 

            Stan leaned over his knees, starting to construct a stack of the gold-wrapped chocolates to the left of his bowl, and said, “Maybe it’s a sign that we honestly do know everything about each other, so spinning it wouldn’t even make a difference.”

 

            Kyle stalled… instantly recognized in himself that he very well should not have stalled, and covered quickly, “I—maybe, sure, yeah.”

 

            He knew better than that.  Stan sat up, looked at Kyle for a good half a minute, then asked, _“Is_ there something?”

 

            To dissuade him, Kyle stood, collecting the plates they’d used for their long-since finished pizza.  “Nah,” he lied, “not really.  I’ll tell you one thing, though, I’m getting really fucking cold.  Let’s make another fire.”

 

            Kyle felt Stan watching him with suspicion as he took the dirty plates to the kitchen.  Once there, Kyle stalled, knowing it was stupid to be doing so.  He listened in to hear Stan swearing at the fireplace as he attempted to build up the logs and newspapers on his own.  A glance out the window reminded Kyle of the reason the fires were necessary at all… oh, his father would not be impressed at what had happened to the generator; he was sure he’d be hearing lamentations for days to come.

 

            “Dude, get back in here, this fire’s being an ass!” Stan called in.

 

            With a slight sigh, Kyle caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window, but instantly lost sight of it when the snow started falling again.  It was softer tonight, not nearly as abrasive against the outside of the house, but a hailstone could be heard here and there beating against the sturdy walls.  Kyle shivered, and returned to the living room.

 

            Stan was bent over the fireplace with a half-burned crumpled newspaper.  He swore at it, lit it, and shoved it in underneath the logs before his fingers could burn. 

 

            “Congratulations,” Kyle mocked him, slapping Stan on the back when he joined him.

 

            “You do the poking it with a stick part this time,” Stan graciously offered.

 

            “But you’re so good at it,” Kyle said, shoving him a little.  “I’ve gotta light the menorah, anyway.  One fire each.”

 

            “Fine,” Stan gave in, feigning annoyance.

 

            The wind moaned softly through the house’s foundation as Kyle once again lit the Shamesh candle in order to light the two he situated on the right-hand side of the silver menorah.  As he rushed again through his mostly-recalled Hebrew prayer, he watched Stan, in the reflection of the window, tend to the fire and begin to straighten out their cushion and pillow fort.

 

            Kyle left the table to help pile up the blankets, and after both had changed out their jeans for flannel pants, he blew out the menorah candles and was the first to claim a spot on the makeshift mattress.  “Nice fire,” he complimented Stan.  “Thanks.”

 

            “I hope so,” said Stan, gathering up the three bowls, gelt and dreidel from the center of the room, “it almost cost me the feeling in my left hand.”

 

            “Stop hanging out at my house, you’re picking up my mom’s guilt trip tendencies.”

 

            “No way.”  Stan wandered back over to place the bowls down on the floor at Kyle’s head, then shifted under the blankets as well, so that the fire was at their feet and Stan could prepare another dreidel game without the flames blinding them.

 

            He set the bowls each a good six or so inches apart, stole a chocolate for himself, and prompted, “Move over.”

 

            Kyle shifted to be lying on his stomach, and folded his arms on the floor in front of the bowl Stan had presented him with to prop himself up.  The slight draught coming from his right was gone when Stan lifted the comforter to slide in beside him, to lie stretched out in a similar fashion.  When both were propped on their stomachs, Stan offered the dreidel up to Kyle, and said, “Good luck.”

 

            “Same rules?” Kyle wondered.

 

            “Sure, if we want,” Stan offered.

 

            With a look at the lit menorah, Kyle accepted the top, breathed a bit of hot air onto his cold fingers, and gave it a spin.  _Shin._   “Off to a rousing start,” he commented.

 

            After Stan spun _nun_ and Kyle another _shin,_ the two did wonder whether the game was going to end up completely moot, until, five minutes in, _gimmel_ landed face-up.

 

            Kyle was the one who made the spin.

 

            “Fuck,” he felt himself say.

 

            “Oh, dude, finally,” Stan laughed.

 

            Kyle blinked at the dreidel.  Stan did not understand.  Years.  Years and years and years of playing that simple game and losing, he’d spun the ‘take all’ letter.

 

            It was a gorgeous rendering of the letter, too; Kyle found himself staring at it for its artistry as well as the rarity of the spin.  The carving could have been real gold, it shone so well, even far from the flames behind them.  It was a shame someone had dropped or otherwise lost it.

 

            If that was the case.

 

            “Dude.”  Kyle turned his head, fully serious, and looked Stan straight in the eyes as he asked, “Don’t you think this dreidel’s in a little too good condition to have been some randomly squirreled away thing on the side of the road?”

 

            “What d’you mean?” Stan wondered, looking over the top’s surface.

 

            “I don’t—I don’t know,” Kyle blabbered, “but I mean, look at it.  No scratches, or… or dirt, or anything.  It was just… there. And now it’s the only dreidel I’ve ever gotten a winning spin on.”

 

            Stan paused, slowly lifted his gaze to meet Kyle’s again, then let his lips spread into a cunning smile as he asked, “What, you saying I found a magic dreidel?  Dude.”

 

            “No!” Kyle blurt out, flushing red.  He knew the thought was stupid.  “No, no, no, it’s just—”

 

            “You totally think I found a magic dreidel.  That’s adorable.”

 

            “I do not!  And even if you did, weirder shit has happened.”

 

            Stan was not one to argue that point, but he continued, “It’s a paranormal dreidel.”

 

            “No.”  Kyle could still feel heat in his face.  “Dude, forget I said anything.  It’s just… I don’t know, I was making an observation.”  Fuming now, he slid the top toward Stan.  “Your spin.”

 

            Stan laughed.  “No way,” he corrected, “let’s stick to the rules.  What’s your big shocker that I don’t know?”  He paused, then pressed against Kyle’s shoulder to prod, “Or was you thinking there’s something up with this dreidel your big secret?”

 

            “I don’t think there’s anything ‘up’ with the fucking dreidel, Stan,” Kyle mumbled.

 

            Weirder things had indeed happened, Kyle continued to think, nonetheless.  Presented with his own very real game rule, however, Kyle sank down, wondering how best to formulate his words. 

 

            Kyle was nine when a rumor began spreading around school that he was gay.  It was two months and four days after his fifteenth birthday that he accepted the rumor as true.  Summer was a terrible, terrible time for most of the residents of South Park, if only due to the wet heat and long days, but it had been worse for Kyle that year, as the latter half of it was spent on what he swore would be his final retreat as a Jew Scouts camp counselor at a site outside of Breckinridge.

 

            Ike was still active in Jew Scouts (he’d been saying “it’ll look good on my college resume” since he was about six), and Kyle mainly stuck around for his younger brother.  The elder counselors, however, did find the time to make the camp at least slightly interesting for the teenagers involved, out of which Kyle was one of the youngest, even at fifteen.

 

            “I’ve played dreidel variant games before,” Kyle told Stan, recalling the summer camp retreat.

 

            “…That’s your big secret?”

 

            Kyle slapped Stan’s wrist for the stupid comment.  “A guy at that camp I helped out at taught me a couple,” he went on.  The fire hissed behind him, and Kyle secured his grip on the dreidel from Stan, rolling it between the fingers of his right hand.  “I—I don’t wanna go into details, but one of them involves stripping.”

 

            Stan’s pulse quickened, and he inched away from Kyle only slightly, hoping to hide any added excitement from the thought of playing that variant.  He hated having his mind in the gutter when it came to Kyle at times… at others, his arousal simply confirmed, to Stan, just how much Kyle meant to him.  He felt that way about no other guy; no girl, either, when he thought of it.  Stan had masturbated with the best and the brightest of all teenage boys to the usual celebrity suspects, but in terms of personal preference, he’d tested himself out many times.  He would look around at school, out of town, at Shelley’s college, but no one could hold conversation like Kyle.  No one could hold Stan’s interest like Kyle.  And nobody could get Stan interested in a stupid stripping game like Kyle.  Facts of life, he figured; facts of life, why fight it.

 

            “Did you play?  At fucking _Jewish camp?”_   Stan did not know whether or not it was out of place for him to laugh, so he hid the fact that he wanted to.  The idea was more than a little absurd.

 

            “I—yeah?” Kyle said, warily.  “So it’s, like…”—he demonstrated with the sides of the new dreidel— _“hey,_ you take off half your clothes, _shin_ you put a piece back on, _nun,_ nothing happens, and at camp we played it that with _gimmel_ you either take ‘em all off, or you make out with the person who spun before you.”

 

            “I wanna say I know where this is going,” Stan commented, teasingly ruffling up Kyle’s curls, “but you said you’ve never spun _gimmel.”_

 

            “I didn’t.”  Averting Stan’s gaze, Kyle finished, “The guy who taught us the game did.  I spun before him.”

 

            The slight distance Stan had created suddenly felt like a canyon.  More than aroused, he was overwhelmed with the want to protect Kyle from a situation that had already happened.  When Kyle wouldn’t look at him, Stan finished the story well enough in his own head.

 

            So he thought.

 

            “And, so, yeah,” Kyle went on, “that was the first time I kissed that guy.”

 

            From pulsing wildly to stopping altogether, Stan’s heart was exhausted.  The fire felt too warm, for a moment, as he moved closer to Kyle again, looking not at his face but at his hands, noticing that they were shaking, and pale.  Kyle stressed like it was his job, but he did not shake; Kyle Broflovski did not tremble.  He was stubborn, and strong, and Stan loved that about him.  He did not hate Kyle when he broke down; he hated the thing that had caused his friend to feel that way.  “The first time?” Stan asked, warily, wanting to grab Kyle’s hands to make them stop shaking, to help him forget any negative consequences of the story Stan had never heard.

 

            “It—I don’t know, dude, neither of us were even close to fully stripped, and we never did.”

 

            “You didn’t fuck him,” Stan translated.

 

            “I didn’t fuck him,” Kyle insisted, frowning at the floor.  “I didn’t even want to, but I wanted to kiss him.  Holy _shit,_ dude, I wanted to kiss him.  That first time, Stan, that first time, it was like the world was collapsing and I had this one last task to do before life could be wiped out.  I didn’t care what the fuck the guy’s name was or anything, but he _tasted_ right, he _felt_ right—” Stan wanted to stop him, but held his tongue— “everything… clicked, I don’t know.  Guys feel different than girls, they feel better.  _I_ feel better with them.”

 

            “Oh,” was all Stan could manage, before Kyle summed everything up:

 

            “I’m gay.”

 

            “Yeah,” Stan nodded, still looking at Kyle’s shaking hands.  “Okay.”

 

            “So forget the guy, forget strip dreidel—” Stan did not want to forget strip dreidel— “it’s just the… yeah.  The rest.”

 

            Kyle heaved a sigh, and lifted his head stiffly, as if a board had been stapled to the back of his neck.  His head made an awkward tilt so that he could look directly at Stan as he attempted to smile.  “So now you know.”

 

            Now that it was out, Kyle felt a rush of relief, and yet guilt set in, since he had been afraid of being unfair to Stan by not telling him from the start.  It was the guilt of having come to terms by way of a nameless stranger.

 

            “Do you still talk to the guy?” Stan wondered.

 

            “No,” Kyle mumbled.

 

            “How come?”

 

            “Because I don’t care about him?  I don’t know.”  Every word made Kyle more flustered, but he rambled on, “I think the thing I liked best was that he _could be_ anonymous, which is fucking horrible, but it was outside this Goddamn town, and away from any fucking rumors!”

 

            “Oooohhhhh.”

 

            Stan began rubbing Kyle’s back, despite the innate want to reach instead for his hands.  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Stan reassured his friend.  “And, hey, if anything does come up, come talk to me, okay?”

 

            “Thanks, Stan,” Kyle beamed.  “That fucking story’s been constipating my brain since August.  I should’ve just talked to you first, I knew I should have.”

 

            “Well, I mean, whatever, it’s out now,” Stan pointed out kindly.  He felt a surge in his chest, and tried to stay his own building nerves.  “You wanna keep talking?”

 

            Outside, the wind began to pick up as it had the night before, and Kyle huddled under the blankets, his shoulder bumping against Stan’s as he adjusted.  “Nah,” he answered, offering up the dreidel, “but let’s keep playing.  Thanks for listening, Stan.  But,” Kyle grinned, “now we’ve gotta play till I get some big secret out of you.”

 

            It almost felt like a miracle.  Four years of waiting to profess his own truth to Kyle, and an opportunity to do so had presented itself to Stan, on only the second night of Hanukkah, no less.  _Tell him this time._   Oh, Stan would.  As soon as he spun the letter of truth.

 

            Stan counted the number of his spins to twenty, and began disbelieving in luck and the concept of miracles altogether when he’d taken his twenty-fifth spin, having come up with _shin_ a consecutive ten times.  All give and no take.  Which was precisely what Stan did not want in a—wait, he began thinking: what _did_ he want?

 

            Kyle, plain and simple, but not as an object, no, never.  Put simply, Stan realized, if he told Kyle his own greatest secret, the ideal outcome would be for a mutual sharing of the deep love he had known, without a doubt, he felt for his best friend.  A relationship, maybe.  Maybe.

 

            He spun again, now with an empty bowl.

 

            The clay top fell, displaying one of the two simpler letters.

 

            “Aw-aww…” Stan groaned.  “Nothing.  You win, dude.”

 

            “No, hold on.”  Kyle un-wrapped one of the chocolates from his dish, and leaned over to inspect the dreidel.  “It’s not _nun,_ Stan, it’s _gimmel._   You’re still in.”  Kyle smiled, and popped the chocolate disc into his mouth. “Winner take all.”

 

            Stan’s blood rushed.

 

            “What’s your secret?” Kyle asked, almost baitingly.

 

            The decision came all at once.

 

            Stan waited for Kyle to finish his morsel of chocolate, but knew that he had to act while the opportunity had presented itself.  Carefully, and feeling half out of his mind, Stan leaned in to meet Kyle at the level at which he lay.  When Kyle’s lips were parted after exhaling a breath, Stan lay his mouth over Kyle’s, and a sudden jolt of warmth sparked through them both.

 

            Kyle sat up with a start, drawing a surprised inhalation of breath through his nostrils, but Stan followed the backward movement—he quickly grabbed the thick curls at the back of Kyle’s head with both hands, and held on firmly, not allowing the two to break contact.  The comforter fell back into the pile of pillows, but the sudden rush from the air and the heat from the fire only added to the stunning of Stan’s senses as he held on.

 

            Whether brought on by the melted dark chocolate coin, or simply a reflection of natural pheromones, a bittersweet but smooth taste was left on Stan’s tongue.  Cold air stung and dried his lips upon pulling back, and out of want for warmth, for that taste, for that exhilarating connection, he initiated a kiss again, this time with far less desperation, less anxiety.

 

            Kyle was in shock, but did not move.  He managed to relax, and even melt a little into Stan’s vigor.  But he had no idea what to do with his hands.  They clutched the cushion he’d been resting against so strongly he was afraid his fingers might rip through the fabric; by the time he’d finally settled on instead finding a grip on the front of Stan’s shirt, his friend had pulled back yet again.

 

            Both were then locked in a fire-lit stare, until Kyle scarcely voiced, “What was that?”

 

            At a loss for what to say, Stan slowly eased his grip, and drew his hands back, prompting Kyle to do the same.  “I, um… wow,” he breathed.  Kyle bundled Stan’s sweatshirt around his frame, and kept their eyes locked as he waited for an answer.  There was no anger in Kyle’s expression; even shock seemed to have melted away, leaving only a sort of serene honesty.  “I spun _gimmel,”_ Stan said, “but fuck if I could think of anything to say.”

 

            “So you—” Kyle prompted.

 

            “Yeah.”

 

            “But that was what you—?”

 

            “Yeah.”

 

            The comforter provided a bit of an obstacle, but Stan managed to shift and sit cross-legged as he forced himself to find coherent words.  “Truth is, Kyle, I’ve been wanting to say something,” he confessed.  “For like, four years.  I’ve been counting.”

 

            “You didn’t just do that because of what I—?” Kyle wondered.

 

            Stan shook his head.  “I mean, that helped, yeah, but… honestly, I just had to go for it, dude.  Sorry if I—”

 

            “N-no, you’re fine,” Kyle assured him, “that was okay.  I—wait, shit…”

 

            As Kyle made a grab for his own springy hair, Stan laughed, “Just _okay?_   I can do better.”

 

            “No, sorry, that was stupid.  Um…”

 

            The phone rang.

 

            For a moment, all either of the boys could do was stare at one another, as if ignoring the sound would make it go away.  The caller was persistent, and the phone would ring only four more times before getting cut off, and so, biting his lip and feeling a slight worry that he would come off as evasive, Kyle rose to his feet, pocketing the dreidel.  He had taken three steps away from the cushions before his nerves turned him around to explain, “I’m just gonna answer that, sorry, it’s probably my parents, so…”

 

            “Go ahead, yeah,” Stan prompted.  He was not put off in the slightest, but it still caused Kyle a bit of worry as he made his way to the next room in order to take the call.

 

            He had guessed correctly, and was wrapped up for what became a nearly ten-minute (and mostly one-sided) conversation with his mother, giving update after update about how she was glad the blizzard was subsiding, and that all was well, and that she hoped Kyle remembered that they had a gas stove and he could still cook food.

 

            There was hardly an opening to speak directly about Stan, though Kyle was not at all prepared to state _exactly_ how things were going; not yet.  Sheila was the one who asked after Stan, rather than Kyle offering information.  “Oh,” she added as the conversation was nearing its ten-minute mark, “will you tell Stanley his parents say hello?  I’m so glad you two have each other, dear, are you staying warm?”

 

            Only when she had asked that did Kyle remember that the air was freezing.  He leaned against the wall, and with his free hand tugged the hood of Stan’s sweatshirt closer to the back of his neck.  “Yeah,” was all he could offer for an answer.  In his mind, he was already recalling the warmth of a few minutes before, and his blood rushed faster at the thought that he could feel it yet again.

 

            “Have you been lighting the menorah?”

 

            “Yeah,” Kyle assured his mother, “I have.”

 

            “Now, it’s not enough to just light the candles, you know, _bubbe._   Count your miracles and blessings.  Sometimes it’s nice to reflect.”

 

            And Kyle was not one to argue that point, not at all.

 

            The last thing Sheila spoke of was the latest update from the town council, on talks of power returning to the town.  With the weather subsiding and South Park having gone off of avalanche watch, road crews, she said, would be arriving on Monday morning.

 

            That gave Kyle one more night after this, one more full day and evening with Stan alone, with everything laid out in front of them.

 

            Kyle waited for his mother to hang up before he did the same, and made small, soundless steps across the room to the opening into the living room, not wanting to sort his heart out on his own.  Once he had arrived at the break between rooms, however, he noticed right away that Stan, over the duration of the conversation, had gathered the comforters around himself, and was lying facing the window, most likely asleep.

 

            Kyle paused in the doorway.  His left hand rose as if to knock on the wall, but stopped itself, frozen, dead in the air.  Why would he need to knock?  Should he?  Would it be better?  Indecisiveness left him stranded in the doorway, but it had been this sort of cold doubt that had stalled Kyle before.

 

            That summer, Kyle had started to come to terms with his sexual preferences.  It had taken a stranger to give him the confidence he was afraid to approach on his own at home.  He had not taken care to remember that stranger’s name, he cared only that he’d satiated his inner doubts, and wanted to start anew with a partner he could connect with.  He’d just been afraid to make the first move.

 

            Though still the dictionary definition of a virgin, Kyle had been with girls.  His fingertips knew the soft, smooth touch of a girl’s skin, the slight curve of her neck, the simple angle of her collarbones.  Girls’ kisses were all taste and no temperature, they happened and were done.  Breasts were a turn-off—he should have known, he thought, from the moment he’d forgotten about Bebe Stevens’ early developments in fourth grade, that he’d never be turned on by that defining feature.

 

            No, Kyle preferred men. He had not thought of boys as _boys_ in his head once since summer: they were _men._   Men had more varied textures of skin, fuller frames, no negatively distracting curves.  With men, Kyle could be on the receiving end of a kiss and have the choice to either sink in or fight back.

 

            And with Stan in particular, Kyle could not see himself choosing to fight back.  He didn’t have to.  He had no stakes to claim.  Stan knew Kyle too well.  He could set limits, respect boundaries, and forever be the person who set Kyle the most at ease.  Though a boy in the filed and oft-recalled memories in every corner of Kyle’s mind, Stan Marsh had come to be a man in Kyle’s eyes, and against his skin, and in the lingering taste on his tongue.

 

            Kyle reached into the sweatshirt pocket for his dreidel.  His lucky dreidel.  Stan’s dreidel.  He smiled, wondering if he would continue to be lucky.

 

            One thing at a time, Kyle told himself.  First and foremost, all he wanted was to see Stan’s face.  Common sense be damned—he had no time for feeling stupid as he stepped into the room.  He went first to the menorah, to blow out the three candles, then made his way over to the constructed cushion-hodgepodge mattress, and managed to crawl in amongst the pillows, the name of the game being not to disturb the nap Stan had fallen into, or his position.  Kyle maneuvered clumsily over the cushions, and, though freezing, did not dare to gather any of the covers over himself, for fear of disturbing the well-constructed nest Stan had created.  This was just to see his face, Kyle thought.  Just getting a look at Stan’s expression.  Kyle could always find another blanket from the linen closet, if need be.

 

            But when he lay down to face his best friend, Kyle could not move.

 

            It had been three months and two weeks since Kyle had made peace with his preferences, and in that time he could not recall a single instance of taking the time to look at Stan.  Oh, he’d _noticed_ Stan.  His hormones had certainly noticed.  But he had not taken the time to study him.  To really look, observe, imagine, feel.  Why should he?  He knew what Stan looked like; they’d grown up together.

 

            There was more to him, now.  He was the embodiment of twists and turns, ups and downs, good times and bad in Kyle’s life—because Stan had been there, too.  Every fight, every fracture, every little triumph that one had felt, the other had known as well.  That was what reflected in Stan’s face, even asleep.  His skin had golden undertones; a firm jaw, well-set eyes, and a slightly inward-arching nose completed his physical features, but it was the history Kyle saw in Stan more than anything.  Maybe even the future.

 

            Despite the crackling fire, Kyle still shuddered in the absence of having the added warmth of the blankets, and his sudden movement caused Stan to stir and open his eyes.  Kyle stared into them for a second, memorizing that particular shade of blue, before he shivered a second time.

 

            “Hi,” Stan said, with sleep on his voice.

 

            “Hi,” Kyle returned.

 

            “Sorry I fell asleep.”

 

            Kyle shook his head into the pillow he was resting on.  “It’s okay.  Sorry I woke you up.”

            “It’s fine.  You okay?”

 

            Another shiver.  “I’m freezing,” Kyle admitted.

 

            Stan’s lips were still chapped from the dry air surrounding the fireplace, but he managed a brilliant enough smile when he said, “Well… maybe you should’ve actually laid down under the covers.”

 

            “I didn’t know if I should.”

 

            “What?”

 

            Kyle slowed his breath, watching the constantly moving orange glow from the fire cast alternating highlights and shadows on Stan’s skin.  “I don’t know.  I didn’t want to wake you up.”

 

            “I don’t care.”

 

            “Well, I know that now.”

 

            Stan closed his eyes.  “Mmhmm.”

 

            Kyle hesitated, afraid that Stan had drifted off again.  “So,” he requested, feeling his voice fail him somewhat, “can I now?”

 

            “Can you what?” Stan mumbled.

 

            “Come under the covers?”

 

            “I dunno,” Stan mocked, smirking even with his eyes still closed, “should you?”

 

            “For fuck’s sake, Stan, I’m freezing.”

 

            Finally, Stan opened his eyes; the smirk melted and a true, relaxed smile took its place.  He wriggled out of his well-wrapped position, and freed the two large blankets he had burrowed beneath, in order to offer up the rest to Kyle, who inched closer.  Stan closed what little distance there was by tucking a corner of the blankets under Kyle’s shoulder.

 

            With barely an inch between them as they lay face to face beside the dying fire, Kyle once again found himself wondering what the hell to do with his hands.  He gathered both up close to his own chest, where he felt his heart racing and his breath stalling.

 

            “Still cold?” Stan wondered.

 

            Hands still itching to hold onto something, Kyle thought about reaching for Stan’s hair, maybe even just his shoulder, but he hesitated.  “A little,” he answered.

 

            Any distance that had existed between the two at all, whether real or figurative, was closing in that evening, all with the help of a few spins from a luckily discovered, ornately decorated top.  The dreidel game had been the final push on Stan’s conscience, a defining factor in his confidence, and he was feeling less and less wary.  The kiss had been direct—it had to be direct.  Now he could slow down.  Ask questions.  Do everything for the sake of Kyle’s comfort.

 

            “Can I make a suggestion?” he asked.  Kyle responded with nothing but a nod.

 

            Stan held up the comforters, waited for another nod from Kyle, then drew the sheets over their heads.  Only a faint amount of firelight seeped through the tightly woven fabrics.  In the full, calming darkness under the thick padded sheets, Stan eased open Kyle’s lips with his own, and shared with him a taste warmer than fire.  Slowly, Kyle set his steady hands flat against Stan’s chest, and curled his fingers in one by one.

 

            It was the second time they’d kissed.

 

            Stan was counting.

 

            So was Kyle.

 

– – –

 

            Despite waking to another grey, overcast morning, Stan could have sworn that the sun was shining more brightly than it had the day before.

 

            Kyle had once again been the first of the two to wake, but this time, neither had tossed or turned under the sheets, and Kyle had not left the secure warmth of the bundled blankets.  He had waited to watch Stan wake up beside him, and they shared a kiss before either said a word.  Stan locked his legs around Kyle’s, and brushed his red curls back behind one ear.  A slight staring contest decided that Stan would be the first to say, “Good morning.”

 

            “Hi,” Kyle offered in place of an exact echo.

 

            When Kyle smiled, Stan could not hold back from kissing him again.  He had been wondering for six years what it would feel like to kiss Kyle.  Every time he’d shared a kiss with another person, Stan had told himself it was practice, knowing that the idea was probably completely stupid and he was making an ass of himself.  Not true, it seemed; not true.  And the wait had been worth it.  Kyle’s taste, Kyle’s touch, was precisely the way Stan had imagined it: as familiar and smart as the rest of him.

 

            The sum of their kisses had reached seven by the time they finally stood, and twelve before they began the day.  Stan allowed Kyle the first trip to the bathroom, while he swept back the ashes from the fire, and when Kyle returned, he wordlessly pulled Stan aside to kiss him with his back to the dining room wall.  By the time Stan excused himself to the bathroom, he’d lost count of how many times he and Kyle had kissed.

 

            Which was just as well—it must have meant, he guessed, that they’d eventually reach infinity.

 

            Stan knew that he loved Kyle; knew without a single doubt.  But he could not have predicted falling again, and so fast, so strongly.  He could not have asked for a better situation… time, with Kyle, alone, to work everything through, to decide the kind of path they wanted their enhanced friendship to take.

 

            He was so glad he had held out until Hanukkah.

 

            When Stan seemed to be taking too long in the bathroom, Kyle, in the kitchen, took it upon himself to make breakfast.  And not to be lazy about it this time.  He’d started to fall in love, and wasn’t that something to celebrate?

 

            The only thing Kyle could make with confidence was French toast, and with the opportunity to prepare something more interesting than cereal—not to mention more eggs in the fridge than Kyle knew what to do with—he prepared a buttery, cinnamon batter in which he doused four thick slices of bread.  As he transferred one slice of bread onto a skillet on the stove, Stan wandered into the kitchen from the bathroom, and asked right away, “What are you doing?”

 

            Kyle smiled into his answer, “Making French toast.”

 

            “Fancy.  What’s the occasion?”

 

            “I don’t know,” Kyle lied with a one-shouldered shrug as he turned another slice to soak in the batter, “just wanted something different from cereal.”

            “Hmm.”

 

            Stan walked further into the room, and, hardly hesitating, set his arms around Kyle’s waist.  “Hi,” Kyle laughed.

 

            “What’s up?”

 

            “What are you doing?”

 

            “Being a highly effective sous chef,” was Stan’s answer as he pressed a kiss into a tuft of soft red curls.  “I see we’re sticking with the theme.”

 

            “What theme?”

 

            “Melting pot,” Stan reminded him.  “Ethnic food.”

 

            “French toast is not ethnic food, Stan, that’s stupid.”

 

            “It’s called French.”

 

            “So are fries.”

 

            “Well, fortune cookies aren’t Chinese.”

 

            “And the world explodes,” Kyle finished, rolling his eyes.

 

             A courtesy call from the power company distracted their attention after breakfast, so as Kyle was tied up on the phone explaining the situation with the generator, Stan busied himself as best he could.  He carted up more firewood from the basement, replaced batteries in one of the flashlights, and took care to throw away a pile of used matches from both the fireplace and menorah table.

 

            Every time Stan passed by the corded phone, he’d brush his hand on Kyle’s arm, or shoulder, or up into his hair.  Every time, Kyle turned, and grinned, and made a grab for Stan’s hand or wrist in return.

 

            When the power company hung up, allowing Kyle to free himself from the phone, he immediately sought Stan out, and they were hardly to be found in separate rooms for the remainder of the day.  Conversation ranged from immediate circumstances—the generator, knowing that the streets outside would soon be bearably walkable, at least—to recalling their shared past and speculating on what lay, for them, beyond that particular day.

 

            “I realized something,” Stan mentioned in the middle of the afternoon.  They were seated three-quarters of the way up the stairs to the second floor of the house, and with the sky growing darker, Kyle had noted that he wanted to light the menorah the second the sun went down.  So that the night could really be theirs.  The spot on the stairs had been chosen as a resting spot when both were reminded that the sofa no longer had its cushions, and it had seemed ridiculous to discuss relationships at the dining room table.  “It’s vacation.”

 

            “Yeah,” said Kyle, “you already said that.”

 

            “No, but, like… that means we can take our time,” Stan clarified, resting his head on Kyle’s shoulder.

 

            Kyle’s heart skipped.  “Take our time?” he repeated.  “So… about…?”

 

            “I don’t know,” Stan baited him.  He placed one hand on Kyle’s knee, kissed his cheek, and came to the clarification of, “Us?”

 

            “Are we?”

 

            “Are we what?”

 

            _“Us?”_ Kyle pressed his forehead against Stan’s, as if that could force their minds to merge.

 

            “Well, to be honest, I hope so,” Stan admitted.  Nudging Kyle’s nose with his, he added, “I want to know you.”

 

            “You do,” Kyle reminded him.

 

            “All of you.”

 

            He followed his thought with a swift kiss.  His tongue traced the entirety of Kyle’s mouth; he stroked his hand further, slowly, up Kyle’s thigh.  Kyle welcomed every motion, tried to match every action.  When Stan shifted as if to be a shield around his body, Kyle pulled him in, his own pulse throbbing in his ears from a rush of blood, exhilaration, and the thrill of the future.  Every day in Kyle’s foresight included Stan; in many ways, it always had been that way.

 

            Nothing was going to change.  Everything would simply move forward.

 

            Stan released Kyle’s mouth, and as both filled their lungs with sweet, cold air, he asked, “Do you want to know me?”

 

            Kyle grabbed onto Stan’s lower back.  “Yeah.”

 

            “When?”

 

            “Tonight.”

 

            Stan grinned, and kissed the ridge of Kyle’s Roman nose before asking, “Dreidel game?”

 

            Kyle laughed, “Sure.  But right now we should move.”

 

            “Why?”

 

            “Because if you don’t sit on your ass right now, you’re going to fall down the stairs.”

 

            He was right: Stan glanced down at the way he’d tangled his limbs around his friend, which put his right foot in a precarious location at the very edge of the step below where they’d been seated.  Correcting his stance, he held one hand out to Kyle, who gladly let him draw him to his feet.  “So if I did fall down the stairs,” Stan teased, as the two began a slow descent back to the ground floor, “would you come visit me in the hospital?”

 

            “Only to say I told you so,” Kyle dealt back, pressing his nose into the crook of Stan’s neck.

 

            “Aw-aww… not because you care?”

 

            “I’d care,” Kyle relented.  He elbowed Stan in the ribs.  “But I’d also say I told you so.”

 

            _Because like it or not,_ Kyle finished in his head, _I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you._

 

            He thought variants of the same idea through the remaining moments of daylight, right up to sunset, when he released Stan to once more build the fire.  “I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose,” Stan mentioned, though he went about the task without prolonged complaint.

 

            “This’ll be the last time you have to, though.”

 

            And that was when the reality of it all set in: this would be the last night, for now, of being alone with Stan during the blackout.  As Stan had pointed out, they did have vacation directly ahead of them, and, with luck, longer beyond even that.

 

            He decided not to ask Stan whether or not he thought the two of them would last as a pair.  Just like predictions in the weather, something would either happen, or it wouldn’t, and in the meantime there were factors that simply could not be changed.

 

            _Count your miracles and blessings,_ his mother had said.

 

            Kyle had gone from thinking the statement contrived to feeling as though no numbers in the world could add up to the proper count.  The snowfall was a blessing, the fire, the game, everything, all of it— _gimmel._   With Stan, years were blessings, moments were miracles.

 

            After a solid minute of reflecting on the good fortune the otherwise grey, icy weekend had brought him, he blew out the menorah candles and joined Stan yet again by the growing fire.  Testing his boundaries, he leaned against Stan’s side, and rested his head on his shoulder.  This was hardly new, as the two had hardly set boundary rules before, but this time, Stan was able to kiss the top of Kyle’s head through his tangled curls, and tug him closer for warmth, comfort and protection.

 

            “Stan?” Kyle found himself saying, with blessings still on the brain.

 

            “Hmm?”

 

            “I wanted it to be you.”

 

            “Wanted what?” Stan wondered, quietly.

 

            Kyle moved in closer, let out his breath, and confessed, “When I was talking about how I’d ideally spend the holiday?  Like, with people I’d really want to be with?  This has… kinda been exactly that.”

 

            “Really?”

 

            “Mmhmm.” 

 

            Stan grinned against Kyle’s ear.  “Still think I found a magic dreidel?”

 

            “Dude,” Kyle chastised, done with the joke.  If it was a joke.  His heart skipped, and he wondered if Stan could feel it.  There was still a slight gap between where they sat, and Kyle pleaded silently for Stan to be the one to move closer.

 

            Kyle felt for the dreidel in his (well, Stan’s) sweatshirt pocket with his left hand, and closed his fingers around it, running his thumb over the indented _gimmel_ letter.  Both had spun it once, the night before, to win it all.

 

            Noiselessly, Stan wrapped an arm around Kyle to pull him closer, and their bodies held in all the warmth in the room.  It also presented Stan with the opportunity to press his lips directly on Kyle’s temple, where they touched both skin and hair.  “I’m just teasing,” he said on a low tone.

 

            Kyle nearly choked.  “About what?”

 

            “The magic thing.”

 

            “Oh.  Good.”  Kyle cleared his throat, and nuzzled Stan’s chin with his nose.

 

            “So,” Stan prompted, “what do you say?”

 

            “Hmm?”

 

            “Want to play for real?”

 

            The invitation was so enticing, Kyle did not have to think twice before giving a positive answer.  His lips thinned into a widely stretched smile as Stan lay a simple, short kiss at the corner of his mouth, and reached into the sweatshirt’s pocket to draw out the dreidel.  “So what are the rules?” Stan prompted, pulling back.

 

            “Are we playing strip, or…?”

 

            “Sure.”

 

            Stan’s temperature rose, and he bent to kiss Kyle’s neck, unable to withstand a prolonged lack of contact.  “Okay,” Kyle murmured into Stan’s hair.  “How about we play like this?”  Closing Stan’s hands around the little top, Kyle continued, _“Shin_ is you, _hey_ is me.  We spin our letter, we take something off.”

 

            “I like where this is going.”  Stan delivered another kiss to Kyle’s neck, almost daring to bite down, to leave a mark, but his respect halted him.  “Can we add a level?”

 

            “Hmm?”

 

            “I spin your letter, I get to choose what goes; same for you spinning mine.”

 

            “Yeah,” Kyle agreed.  _“Nun_ is still nothing?”

 

            “Sure.”  When he sat back again this time, Stan let his eyes meet Kyle’s as he asked, “What about _gimmel?”_

A brief downward glance, and then: “We find out when we get there?”

 

            An agreement reached, the new game was exacted into full force.  With only two players, it seemed apparent that the game itself would not last long, though speculation ran rampant in both friends’ minds, when Stan gave the dreidel its first spin.

 

            _Shin._

 

            Without breaking eye contact, Stan tugged down on the zipper of the black sweatshirt he wore, then slowly slid his right arm out from the sleeve, followed by his left.  The garment was then set aside, the first in what would soon be a pile.

 

            Kyle’s spin resulted in _shin_ as well.  “Shirt,” he requested, and watched every second of motion as Stan gathered his shirt up from the hem to pull it off over his head.  Stan’s short black hair was caught with a bit of static when the shirt came off; Kyle laughed, and reached forward to smooth the raised strands down.  Stan’s hair was strangely coarse, in a way that delighted Kyle’s fingertips as he continued to stroke his hand through.  “Is this stupid?” he wondered.  “I mean with just two of us playing?”

 

            “I don’t know…”

 

            When Stan spun again, _gimmel_ landed face-up.  “How about that?” he remarked.  “What’d you decide this should be?”

 

            Moving his hands to light on the exposed skin of Stan’s torso, he leaned forward and kissed Stan gently on the lips.  An excited short laugh sounded from the back of Stan’s throat, and he placed his right hand on the hinge of Kyle’s jaw, stroking a line with his thumb against the angled bone.  “Couldn’t think of anything to say?” he guessed, grinning against Kyle’s skin when he’d ended the kiss.

 

            “Pretty much.”  Kyle stroked one hand lovingly down the side of Stan’s ribs, and the other along his shoulder, finding it impossible to imagine that he could have gone any longer without knowing what this kind of contact could feel like.  The heat from the fire caused the faint hair on Stan’s arms and the back of his neck to bristle, adding a rough texture here and there to his skin.

 

            Leaving a long, wet kiss on the side of Kyle’s neck, Stan transferred the dreidel into Kyle’s right hand and mentioned, “Your spin.”

 

            It was a half-assed spin; the top shook a few times before landing with _hey_ face up.  Kyle’s sweatshirt was the next garment added to the pile.

 

            _Nun_ next, and then Kyle was rewarded with _gimmel._   He grabbed onto the back of Stan’s head and pulled him close, digging his fingers into strands of thick black hair as Stan pressed forward into their next kiss.

 

            To count blessings, to count miracles, is to insert a bookmark into one’s own experience of good luck.  The bookmark will always be there, serving as a reminder that such occurrences are possible, but over time, the counted number may be forgotten.  Blessings and miracles, though precious and rare, will always exist; counted or not.

 

            Stan had no reason to keep track anymore.  He could have been ten when he first fell in love with Kyle, or he could have been fourteen.  However the affection had begun, the fact remained that Kyle was there, now, in that moment, returning Stan’s kisses and allowing him to fall in love over and over again, in countless ways.

 

            The next spin was _hey,_ followed immediately by another lucky _gimmel._   Stan was allowed the indulgence of sliding his hands up Kyle’s shirt, his hands working at a slow, almost secretive pace until the garment was pulled off and discarded.

 

            When Kyle’s back was exposed to the air, Stan eased him back against the lazily-set comforter closest to where they sat, and the next two spins of the top were made with Kyle lying almost flat, with the comforter and a small stack of pillows to his back, and Stan leaning protectively over him, prompting kiss after kiss, touch after touch with repeated spins of the winning letter.

 

            Neither having had an experience to match this, Kyle was grateful for how gently Stan approached each new touch.  He felt dizzy and alive, practically intoxicated with Stan’s increasingly familiar taste, warm at the honest feel of his hands and chest and pulse and lungs.

 

            Kyle could no longer even fathom being cold.

 

            Stan was hard against Kyle’s inner thigh; there was a hot, wet pressure at the base of his neck where Stan bit at his collarbone.  He felt as though every vessel, every vein in his body might burst with the heat of that contact.

 

            “Close the curtains,” Kyle panted, when Stan released him from a kiss.

 

            Stan nipped Kyle’s ear.  “Why?”

 

            “Just—” Kyle was cut off into  a melting groan when Stan’s mouth closed over his.  “Never mind,” he mumbled out, biting Stan’s lower lip.

 

            Stan made quick work of the zipper on Kyle’s jeans, and traced a teasing line with his fingers running lightly along Kyle’s pelvis.  Kyle shivered with a surge of adrenaline, hit with a familiar rush of blood and that turgid swell he’d felt in Stan’s presence once or twice before.  He grabbed hold of Stan’s neck and held his mouth open; Stan’s tongue was pressed on his a second later, and he could feel sweat beading at his hairline.

 

            When Kyle next had a chance to fill his lungs, Stan nuzzled into his hair and made a question out of, “Your spin?”

 

            “No,” Kyle exhaled.  Hugging Stan in, arms closing around his back, he welcomed the perspiration that held Stan’s skin against his.

 

            Stan’s heavy breaths pushed Kyle down further against the scattered pillows.  “No?” he wondered.

 

            “No,” Kyle repeated, his lips brushing Stan’s as he spoke.  “If we keep… if we keep going, Stan, I don’t want it to be because of a game.”

 

            The gentle kiss that followed showed that Stan understood.  The game was abandoned, and something new began.

 

            “Do you want to?” Stan asked.  He stroked his hand down Kyle’s side, and up; down and up.

 

            Kyle nodded.  “Yeah.  Do you?”

 

            “God, yeah.”

 

            “…I haven’t,” Kyle felt it necessary to remind the friend who already knew everything.

 

            Stan was quick with another kiss before answering, “Neither’ve I.”  Recalling Kyle’s own words, he added, “I wanted it to be you.”

 

            The fire was everywhere.  Its sharp scent stung Kyle’s throat, it crackled in the air and drew the moisture from his skin.  But Stan was the one that was lit and alive, the one who was breathing and burning and filling Kyle with a flame all his own.

 

            It was then that Kyle remembered the lotion he’d procured earlier, to keep his skin from going dry.  He’d all but forgotten, until now.  It took a try and a half, but he managed to reach out for the small bottle just as Stan had added his jeans to the collected clothing pile, just as Stan was massaging Kyle’s hips with every one of his fingertips; his mouth rested open against Kyle’s collarbone.

 

            After taking only a few seconds to rest, Stan slid back onto his knees, drawing down Kyle’s cotton boxers with him; Kyle let out a ghost of a whine in anticipation—stiff, stimulated, short of breath.  The pillows remained soft yet stolid behind him, but Stan was in constant motion, sweating and breathing and flickering with heat.  Kyle thrust the lotion forward and pressed the bottle into the skin of Stan’s shoulder, where a second later Stan’s hand covered his, to take the object.  He squeezed Kyle’s hand for added reassurance, slipping him another firm, boiling kiss.

 

            Kyle inhaled deeply, and the air hovered in his mouth for a moment as Stan’s lotion-lathered hands slid smoothly down Kyle’s back.  When Stan entered, a sharp twinge shot through Kyle’s body, and he bit out a yelp of a wince.  He reached out his hands and grabbed Stan’s shoulders at the base of his neck.  Stan slowed his movement at the sound, but Kyle pleaded, “Keep going, keep going.”

 

            Not wanting to be the cause of any unintentional harm, Stan bent to deliver one more kiss before establishing his pace.  Confident, controlled; he was with Kyle, and around him and in him and everywhere.

 

            Until nothing was unknown.

 

– – –

 

            Stan and Kyle woke simultaneously to the high-pitched drone of a slow-moving plow.  It took them both a second to register the sound, and then they were flat on their backs, naked under the blankets and frozen with the realization that the plow could be anywhere from half a mile to a few feet from the front door.  The unlocked front door.

 

            “I told you to close the curtains,” Kyle whispered, shifting only his eyes to look at Stan.

 

            Giving a nervous grin, Stan responded, “Are we being tested?”

 

            “I don’t know.”

 

            “Why are we whispering?”

 

            “I don’t know.”

 

            It was bad enough attempting a thorough thought process with morning wood.  Adding outside disruptions made cognitive reasoning almost impossible.

 

            Stan propped himself up on one side, and lay a hand on Kyle’s chest as he leaned in to kiss him good morning.  Even with no objections, even taking a few prolonged seconds to savor the delicate way Kyle kissed him back, Stan knew that there was precious little time to reflect that morning, so he reached around Kyle, relieved that their clothes had all ended up in a single heap, and found both pairs of boxers.  It did not matter who wore what, for the most part, but after maneuvering under the sight of the windows to claim boxers and pants, Kyle silently insisted upon still wearing Stan’s green school sweatshirt.  It would never end up in Stan’s immediate ownership again.

 

            The morning was a rush of getting things done, with the knowledge that any minute the two could be walked in on, either by family or a maintenance worker.  Stan was charged with cleaning out the fireplace and kitchen, while Kyle did his best to re-situate the cushions and pillows in their proper places, wondering how much Febreeze it would take to inconspicuously erase the smell of  caked sweat and inexperienced sex from the family sofa.

 

            When he crossed through the kitchen with a half-empty bottle of the scented spray, Stan took the opportunity to stop loading dishes into the sink and pull Kyle toward him with a quick tug at his sleeve.  Kyle dropped the spray onto a counter and let Stan angle him away from the kitchen window.  From the front door, no one would have a view.  In a perfect blind spot, Stan pressed his mouth over Kyle’s, hard at first, and then dissolving into shorter, smoother touches.

 

            A soft hum escaped from Kyle’s throat, and Stan pressed another calming kiss against his skin before finally asking, “You like this?”

 

            Securing his own hold around Stan’s waist, Kyle responded with a low-voiced yet eager, “Yeah.”

 

            “Can we keep this up?” Stan wondered.  He began a slight sway from where they stood, pressing his hips firm against Kyle’s as their next kiss melted into the slow-moving rhythm.

 

            “Maybe not today,” Kyle lamented when he freed his tongue to speak.

 

            “When?”

 

            “Soon.”

 

            “Really?”

 

            “Mmhmm.”

 

            Stan’s eagerness turned the sway into forward movement, and the two managed five quick steps further into the room, until Kyle’s back just barely grazed the refrigerator door.  Stan kept the sliding motion of his tongue to a steady rhythm, and breathed in Kyle’s stoic willingness to respond.  When he pulled back, Stan gathered his fingers into Kyle’s hair, and rested against him to say, “You must really love me.”

 

            The reverberation of Kyle’s laugh sank into Stan’s skin.  “What makes you say that?”

 

            “Because neither of us has showered for two days.  And I forgot to close the curtains.”

 

            Kyle raised his head, placed his hands at the base of Stan’s neck, and declared, “I’m not going to fight my luck.”  He raised himself onto his toes only slightly, lay a small kiss underneath Stan’s eye, then moved his lips to hover close to his ear in order to add, “And you’re right.”

 

            “Hmm?”

 

            “I do.”

 

            “What?”

 

            “Love you.”

 

            Stan’s eyes flared open, his pulse quickened; he held Kyle’s face in his hands and kissed him fiercely, thanking every last stroke of their luck, counting every one of that weekend’s blessings in rapid-fire succession.  They were together—moving together, creating together, teaching and learning; this was only the beginning.

 

            A beginning that was then harshly interrupted by a pounding on the front door.

 

            Though both plans and words now had to be placed on hold, the two could leave the safety of the kitchen with the proud knowledge that, at least, the weekend had not ended with nothing.  Perhaps it was all thanks to Stan finding that little dreidel, perhaps not, but neither was prepared to question what had started.

 

            The rest of the day was a whirlwind of activity.  The knock had been a team of electrical workers, though Kyle’s family arrived not far behind.  Stan was soon rushed home by his own; the moment the power was restored, Kyle made a rush for his room to charge his cell phone, wondering if Stan would remember to charge his, wondering how long was too long a wait to text him so much as hello, now that a plan had tentatively been made to pick up where the evening had left off.

 

            As Kyle continued cleaning under the sounds of his father’s bereavement over the generator, he made sure to pocket the tiny slips of fortune cookie paper that had been left on the living room floor all weekend.  He read over Stan’s once— _When you are presented with nothing, therein shall you find everything—_ before realizing that one item remained unaccounted for:

 

            Search as he might, Kyle could not find the dreidel.

 

            His mother yelled at him three times for storming through the house like a confused animal, particularly when he would not tell her what it was he was so frantically looking for.  No amount of words could describe the significance of that tiny object; it would just be a trinket to his parents, just a simple Hanukkah staple that could be picked up for a dollar in the grocery store checkout line.  How could he explain that this particular one surpassed that dollar, surpassed even the importance of fire and light and bread and oil—that this was Kyle’s miracle, the agent that had spun him closer to the single most important person in his life?

 

            When night fell, Ike was the one to light the candles, while Gerald gave the Hebrew prayer and Sheila recounted the blessing of spending that night as a complete family. Kyle listened, added a comment here and there, but felt guilt sinking his spirits when the day was gone and he’d still not found Stan’s dreidel.

 

            He checked his phone once he’d returned to his own bedroom, and discovered a text from Stan: _Happy 4 th night._

_Thanks,_ he texted in reply.  Then, sending before he could second guess, _See you soon._

Kyle hovered by the phone until it buzzed with Stan’s response.  _Can I call?_

 

            Rather than respond with yes or no, Kyle simply tapped the touch screen on Stan’s number.  It only rang once before Stan answered.  They exchanged hellos, goodnights, and the hopes that nights like the one before could be repeated, and repeated often.  Kyle did not mention the absence of the dreidel, he could not bring himself to do so.  He’d find it in the morning, he thought.

 

            “Oh, hey,” Stan began his final thought before the two could hang up.

 

            “Hmm?”

 

            “I didn’t really get to say anything after you did, and then I had to leave real fast.  Sorry about that.”

 

            “It’s okay,” Kyle said, “I wasn’t thinking anyone would get here that quick, it was weird.”

 

            “Mmhmm.  Um… anyway, yeah, so… shit, this is lame over the phone.”

 

            “Want to switch to Face Time?”  Kyle regretted the thought as soon as he’d said it.

 

            Stan laughed, not unkindly.  “Nah, that’d be lamer.”

 

            “Yeah.”  Kyle paused, waiting for Stan to elaborate, then broke the small but lingering silence to ask, “What’d you want to say?”

 

            Stan Marsh was someone who was rarely direct, when it came to personal matters.  He was someone who would fight for a cause the moment he felt strongly about it, but someone who would take his time in friendships, not wanting to ruin something that he’d taken such care to build.  But Kyle admired his choice to be less hesitant that weekend.  If Stan had not taken that opportunity to finally be more direct, there could very well have still been secrets between them.

 

            And so it was without preamble that Stan declared, “I love you.”

 

            And Kyle returned the words, and saved them in his mind, repeating them again before falling asleep.

 

            Maybe he didn’t need the dreidel as a reminder to keep his good luck going, but he still fell asleep wondering where it could have gone, and if he’d ever find it again.

 

– – –

 

            It was nearing lunchtime on Tuesday, now two days into winter vacation and three days away from Christmas, when Stan knocked on Kyle’s door.  It was the first time he had knocked in countless years, but he felt a sudden need to, as if, after that weekend, there was an initiation he had to go through in order to be accepted into Kyle’s home under such new circumstances.

 

            But Kyle showed a nervous yet brilliant grin the moment he opened the door.  His eyes read, _why the hell did you knock?_ but his words were much simpler.

 

            “Hey,” Kyle half-intoned, his breath catching short.  He swallowed back any stupid things he might add, and waited for Stan’s response.

 

            It was just another simple, “Hey,” that was returned, but the fact that Stan was beaming with a new sort of giddy pride added more to the syllable.  A bright grin lit up his features, and the cold air had somewhat tinted his cheeks a soft crimson.  Stan held up a canvas bag as he went on, “First thing my mom did this morning was laundry, and I still had a couple of your things, so here you go.”

 

            “Oh,” Kyle remarked, slightly dazed as he took the bag from Stan, “thanks.  Thank you.  Um.”  He glanced down at the bag, then up at Stan yet again.  The weight of whatever their relationship was now tugged at his brain.  What were the rules, now that everything had been laid out on the table?  Now that some new level had clearly been reached?  “Do you… want to come in, or… whatever?”

 

            “Oh, yeah, maybe.”  Stan shrugged, appearing to be in a similar frame of mind.  “Actually, uh… if—I dunno if you’re doing family stuff or something, but if you want, I was hoping maybe we could head into town, just kinda hang out, see if there’s any weird post-blizzard shit going on.  Maybe get lunch, maybe go to some shitty 3D movie and ignore the whole thing.”

 

            Kyle laughed, his earlier nerves now seeming like things of the distant past.  “Are you asking me out?” he had to know.

 

            It wasn’t the cold air tinting the color of Stan’s cheeks; at least not this time around.  “Sure,” he shrugged, still grinning madly, “yeah.  I mean, I am.  Yeah.”

 

            “Well, then, yes.  To any or all of it.”

 

            “Really?”

 

            “Really.”

 

            Stan bent his head at a slight angle to deliver the first kiss of the morning, then stepped in from the cold to wait for Kyle as he pulled on his boots and coat.

 

            “Oh, hey,” Stan said, reaching into his own coat pocket.  “One more thing.”

 

            From the lining, he withdrew a small yet bulky envelope.  Kyle glanced at the dents the contents made in the paper, and identified the object in an instant.  But he still felt a rush upon opening the envelope to withdraw the dreidel the two had found four nights earlier, now fixed to a metal ring and strung to a simple black cord.

 

            “It was in the pocket of the sweatshirt I wore home,” Stan explained.  “I figure, even if you don’t wanna wear it, if that’s too corny or whatever, you could, like, have it somewhere where you wouldn’t lose it.  Or it detaches from the cord, too, see?”

 

            Kyle could come up with no better response than to wrap his arms around Stan, and squeeze tightly.  The little top pressed against his palm, and then against Stan’s back.  The second Stan was returning the hug, Kyle told him, “I love it.  I got so stupidly worried I’d lost it, it’s like my new good luck charm, you know?”

 

            “Mmhmm.”  When the two drew back, Stan showed a warm smile, opened the door, and ticked his head in the direction of the downtown area.  “Well?” he asked enticingly.  “Feeling lucky?”

 

            Kyle nodded, and asked Stan to wait while he secured the dreidel in place around his neck.  Stan glanced at the object once, then said a quick, “Hold on,” before he removed the cord, turned the top around, and replaced it once more.  “There.”

 

            “What’d you do?” Kyle wondered.

 

            Slyly, Stan leaned in to kiss Kyle’s cheek; amused with himself, he noted, _“Gimmel_ has to face out.”

 

            Laughing, Kyle elbowed Stan in the ribs, saying, “You’re so weird.”

 

            Stan laughed as well, then placed his hand on the small of Kyle’s back, to guide him down into the front yard, and along the packed-down paths of shoveled snow.  The world looked new, after the blizzard; familiar, yet re-discovered, allowing everything that lay ahead to be explored.

 

            As they walked, the route they traveled allowed them to pass by a banking familiar in location, but altered by the added snowfall.

 

            Stan was the one who found the dreidel.  Kyle kept it, for luck.

 

            Maybe it was luck.  Maybe it had been imbued with just a small bit of fate.

 

            Or maybe it had just been a lost item waiting to be found.  After all, luck runs its course, and everything is fated to be found in the end.

 

– – –


End file.
